An American flag was hung upside down from El Capitan in Yosemite National Park on Saturday in protest of the Trump administration’s cuts to the federal workforce, which included thousands of National Park Service and U.S. Forest Service workers.
A group of workers at California national park positioned the U.S. flag on Saturday near the Horsetail Fall, an area where crowds of nature enthusiasts and photographers typically gather to witness Yosemite’s annual firefall.
The upside-down flag – or “distress flag” – is meant to also bring attention to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum‘s orders that potentially open federal lands and waters to drilling and mining interests, the group of park staffers told San Francisco Chronicle, who first reported on the protest.
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On the first day of his new term in office, President Trump declared a national energy emergency and pledged to “drill, baby, drill” the country’s natural resources. Environment advocates like the Natural Resources Defense Council, a group that helped pass the 1972 Clean Water Act, say they’re worried the Trump administration’s energy and climate policies could “lead to profound harms to public lands and waters across the country.”
Yosemite National Park employees who were fired also say that they worry the cuts will affect not only the welfare of wildlife but also visitors’ experience.
“You’d be amazed with how many diapers I pick up off the side of the road. Beer bottles, toilet paper, all the stuff so you don’t have to see. You get to see the park in its true natural beauty,” Olek Chmura told the Associated Press.
Another worker, Brian Gibbs, who lost his job earlier this month penned an emotional public letter, saying he was “absolutely heartbroken and completely devastated” to lose his dream job at Effigy Mounds National Monument in Iowa.
The firings impacted about 5% of the park service’s 20,000 employees. After facing outcry, the Trump administration said it plans to restore at least 50 jobs and hire more seasonal workers, the Associated Press reported.
